And it occurred to me: it's not very cool to enjoy ice cream, and there's certainly nothing cool about going through the process of entering an ice cream shoppe, waiting in line, choosing your favorite flavor, paying, and then walking down the street licking on an ice cream cone. But come on – everyone likes them some ice cream, right? Similarly, I have brought down many a hipster conversation by interjecting something quite sincere about therapy, or some new agey healing-type thing I'm into that week, or by recommending a Kitaro album. Eyes might roll and hands might get fidgety, but I can always tell by the resulting awkward-yet-reverent silence that people secretly do want to be hearing about these things. It's only natural to want some light in your life. And so it was that I found myself surprisingly non-eager to see Big Fish, despite being a big admirer Tim Burton. Everything about it seemed like it must be Burton's most egregious bid for Oscar® validation yet, and therefore a complete departure from the dark humor and witty subversion I love about his best films. And in many respects, Big Fish is exactly that: Tim Burton's attempt at a Forrest Gump or Mr. Holland's Opus, aimed squarely at the folks who have been scared off by everything he's done since Edward Scissorhands. Now, it's not that Tim Burton doesn't have a sweet 'n' sentimental side (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Ed Wood share a charmingly naïve sappiness), but Burton's genius lies in his ability to leap across the pitfalls of typical Hollywood cliché, like a particularly adept player of Pitfall. Big Fish falls into some of these traps, though it may be that these moments are only disappointing because this is a Tim Burton movie. My expectations are different … if it were a Cameron Crowe or Robert Zemeckis movie, I'd cut 'em more slack, 'cause I know going in those guys are big sappy sapsters. So for a big, feel-good Hollywood blockbuster, Big Fish massages all the right clitori. It's warm, inspirational, funny, quirky, romantic, and emotional. It has a tight script that doesn't let you miss any of the symbols or themes. It makes no attempt to go over your head, or fuck with your head, and almost goes out of its way to even make popcorn for you to enjoy while you watch. Yet for all my cryin' that hipsters need to dispense with the jaded adherence to darkness and coolness and just make beautiful art already, I found myself having a hard time having Tim Burton pour some sugar on me. Gone are the giddy non sequitirs and visual weirdness of old, in favor of a much more user-friendly (or perhaps that's "crowd-pleasing") product that is colorful and full of uplift. It's still rich in visual flair and unique characters, but reined in for real box office play … and I honestly can't say I blame him for doing it. It's a bit fake, yeah, but no more so than a lot of cheesy movies I love – and it's substantially more gorgeous than most. The story is framed by a young man (Billy Crudup) on the cusp of fatherhood, trying to make peace with his tall-tale-talkin' but distant dad (Albert Finney), who is dying. Crudup wants to glean some truth out of the wild stories his dad has filled his head with since he was a boy. Sound more like On Golden Pond than Beetlejuice? Well, this part of the film is indeed all about healing, as uncool as that is. But it's in flashbacks of the dad's story (with Ewan MacGregor at his most charismatic, playing the young Finney) where Burton's imagination is allowed to run wild, as Ewan encounters all manner of strange situations and unusual characters as he ventures, Candide-style, through his life. The charm is layed on so thick in places that I swore Burton must be spoofing the exact type of film Big Fish ultimately is (the use of some seriously overplayed classic rock songs bolstered the sense of Forrest Gump being roasted on a spit), but overall there's so much heart to it all that I had to stop looking for ulterior motives and simply enjoy what is really quite a beautiful movie. It will never be my favorite Tim Burton flick, but it may well be his "best," whatever that means.
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